49 dollers – I have always thought the Good King Rene and his Book of Love was involved…some of the illustrations mirror The Chase way to closely, especially the one in this article. He fought with Joan of Arc.

I just love the antiques roadshow on PBS. and last night was a real thrill for me. they finally touched on a subject iv’e been thinking about for along time. Inflation.
the featured antique was a 1914 Gibson F-4 mandolin.
now, the appraiser did not mention what the mandolin sold for new in 1914 but a message flashed on the screen as they were talking about the mandolin. the message read: new in 1914 a Gibson F-4 could be bought for $150. adjust for inflation and today would cost $3,450. end message.
so right away im thinking ok, ok. what is the appraiser going to value the mandolin at? blah blah blah, 6 to 7,000 dollars today. so of course the owner of the mandolin is smiling and happy and the appraiser is happy too.
im not happy.
it aways gets me that nobody sees these rise in values as a bad thing. a 1914 gibson F-4 mandolin could still be bought for $150 dollars today, or less, if our economy was working properly. because now you must lay down several thousand dollars to buy a used 1914 mandolin, that means the value of the dollar itself has diminished. it takes more of these worthless pieces of paper to buy the same mandolin that is not new anymore. i just cant be happy about the situation. something is wrong. the day is coming when dollars will be worthless and economists give it a name- hyperinflation.

me- it’s a small sample of earth, the most precious and rare antique there is.

appraiser- (not smiling anymore) but here on antiques roadshow we are looking for items of interest that seemingly no longer exist. you see?

me- What If I told you that everything single thing that ever existed is still here, and that every single thing that ever existed has simply changed in form, and that the dirt in this jar is the partial remains of the very first man to walk the earth…Adam.

appraiser- (indignant, scoffs) you cannot possibly prove that.

me- thats true mr. appraiser i cannot prove that. so what is my jar of earth worth? my sample of that which sustains all life as we know it… the realization of gods imagination… this huge gold making marble floating in space? whats my little jar, my speck…worth?

appraiser- (arms crossed, angry) it is of no value.
SECURITY! remove this man.

Me- ” I brought with me a small earth sample trying to convince the dumb sons a bleepes that the earth is rare and very old and worth more than any of these bleeper bleeping pieces of bleep all these people brought with them today combined! but the bleep bleepin appraiser had me thrown out. I wont be back, thats for sure….bleep you roadshow.”

ca·liph
?k?l?f,?kal?f
“the chief Muslim civil and religious ruler, regarded as the successor of Muhammad. The caliph ruled in Baghdad until 1258 and then in Egypt until the Ottoman conquest of 1517; the title was then held by the Ottoman sultans until it was abolished in 1924 by Atatürk.”

I only know what a caliph is because Forrest quoted from one of Omar Khayyam’s quatrains…

“One part of the exhibit explores how scientists have employed pinhole photography, including several examples from Los Alamos National Laboratory: Julian Mack’s 1945 pinhole exposure of the first atomic bomb test in New Mexico (above) and Richard Blake’s 1960 X-ray photo of the sun.”

What WISE might stand for,…to a person like Forrest,…who calls his astrophysicist friend a “hero”:

The sun has always been my blaze. It fits perfectly with the theme and what he is attempting to do. The sun measures time. Rather time is a measurement of the sun’s position. The sun is also timeless. The sun casts a shadow that you see when you look down. Obviously if the sun is the blaze, you would be looking up to see it. The next step is looking down which presupposes that you have been looking up. But you need to look quickly down because it will change. The blaze will appear for the next thousand years and beyond. Think of the heel stone at Stonehenge. Think of 6/24, Midsummers Day, which celebrates the summer solstice and which is celebrated with bonfires (blazes).

Jack,
I agree with you and I am not quite there yet with my story, but I will confirm that when Forrest said you are wasting your time looking for the blaze and why the poem says “found the blaze” vice “find” makes sense since we see it everyday.